


Just Like Her

by RegularCitrus



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Depression, Episode: s01e04 Volleyball, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mommy Issues, Oneshot, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sleepless nights, Sleeplessness, Somebody please give this boy a hug, Steven Universe Future, Trauma, and maybe a therapist, includes artwork, this is my first ao3 post so idk how to properly tag bdhbdhdb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-18 02:42:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21920497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RegularCitrus/pseuds/RegularCitrus
Summary: Steven does some thinking after their trip to the Reef.
Relationships: Lion & Steven Universe, Steven/Angst
Comments: 36
Kudos: 503
Collections: Steven Universe Completed Recommended Reads





	Just Like Her

**Author's Note:**

> i’ve had the thought of steven seeing himself turn pink bringing back bad memories in my mind since we got the trailer for SUF but i haven’t seen anyone else with the same idea, so i just went for it and wrote the angst myself. enjoy!

He couldn’t sleep.

Not that that was anything new, really. He’d had more than his fair share of sleepless nights ever since becoming a Crystal Gem, and even more so once he’d been able to get the diamonds to change their minds. 

Thankfully all the work that came with dismantling an entire eons-old empire often left him too tired to dream, as if his brain was desperate to grasp onto as much of what little rest it could get between the late nights and early mornings. He was glad for the distraction.

Unfortunately, that meant that once the work was done, the nightmares would just come back.

Steven tossed and turned in his bed like he had done so many times before, just trying to get some shuteye after the emotionally exhausting ordeal at the Reef. He didn’t want to keep thinking about it, because everything was fine now. Sure, they never did end up finding a way to heal the crack over Volleyball’s eye, but she seemed happy enough to have Pearl to talk to instead, and Pearl seemed happy to have Volleyball.

They were both happy, everyone was fine, and nothing bad happened.

...Except something bad did happen, not everyone was fine, and he kept thinking about it anyway.

The half-gem resorted to simply laying on his back and staring at the wooden ceiling above him.

He couldn’t get the image of his own reflection out of his mind, a glowing pink face glaring back up at him from the shattered floor of the once immaculate room with an expression of rage so _intense_ that it scared even himself.

Steven hated being angry. Anger never led to anything good— only hurt. It led to his dad being kidnapped and taken to the zoo, because he was too angry with the gems to really listen to Garnet’s warning. It led to countless gems trying to kill him under the impression that he was Rose Quartz, that he had shattered one of their beloved leaders or some other terrible thing his mom had done (he was getting real sick of keeping track). It led to thousands of gems being shattered, corrupted, forced to fuse...

It led to Pink Diamond’s original pearl being broken.

Every time he saw the crack over her eye, it just served as a reminder, a testament to just how awful his mom really was, just how many people she had hurt. He’d never admit it, but Steven could hardly look Volleyball in the face anymore after learning how it happened. He thought back to what he had said- screamed- _whatever_ , when they were at the Reef:

_“I just want to fix it!”_

His eyes widened as a jolt of both realization and guilt rang through him, making his stomach sink and his heart ache. _Was that the only reason he had wanted to heal her?_

He quickly shook his head. _That’s ridiculous._ Of course it wasn’t. Or- at least it wasn’t the only reason. He genuinely did want to help her, that’s just the kind of person he was. Steven Universe helped people.

He wasn’t supposed to hurt people.

He wasn’t supposed to hurt people, and yet he had hurt Volleyball, the very gem he was supposed to be helping. She had cowered behind Pearl after his violent outburst, crouched low to the floor with her hands clutching her head, shaking and whimpering in quiet terror. He had done the very same thing his mother had done to her once before, had forced her to relive that horrible experience, and he didn’t even care at the time, he was _just so angry._

Looking back, Steven realized just how familiar it was to him as well. A scream that cracked the floor and formed a crater around his feet, the glowing pink hue he had taken on... it was the first time he had really gotten a good look at himself in that mode, or- form (Steven noted with a slight wince that that made him sound like an anime character or something), and it reminded him all too well of that day in White Diamond’s ship.

_Long, black nails reaching down for him, for his gem._

_Waking up in Connie’s arms._

_Staring at himself from across the room through two pairs of eyes._

_The utter helplessness he felt as he tried to get to his other half, fully aware that he was dying, he was dying and he wouldn’t get there in time and there was nothing he could do about it-_

No. He wasn’t going back there again.

Steven quickly shook himself free of the unpleasant memory. He noticed he had somehow sat up in his bed without realizing, breaths coming just a tad quicker than normal and moisture pricking at the corners of his eyes. He let his face drop into his hands with something between a frustrated huff and a barely suppressed sob. He refused to let the tears fall.

_Just a thought, just a thought, just a thought, just a thought, just a thought._

_It’s just a thought, it can’t hurt you._

The mantra Garnet had taught him and Connie years ago repeated itself in his mind as he took a few deep (albeit shaky) breaths, which did help to lift some of the anxiety that pressed down on his chest and made it hard to breathe.

_That was more than two years ago. I shouldn’t be this messed up about it. White’s not going to hurt me anymore, everything’s fine. I don’t need to think about it anymore._

Slowly, he dragged his hands down his face before flopping back down onto the pillow. The whole experience wasn’t that horrible, he tried to convince himself. After all, he made it out alive _and_ as a newly self-realized half-gem-half-human. Everything had turned out just fine in the end.

_So why does it still feel so horrible?_

His hands covered his face once more as he let out a low groan. It was times like this that he was grateful that Pearl didn’t watch him sleep anymore— he didn’t know what he’d do if she saw him like this. Except she sort of did, at the Reef. 

He had never _screamed_ like that before. Then again, he had never felt that angry before, not even when he had gone into his mother’s room and conjured up a faux Rose, or when he found out the truth about her identity, though those two instances came very close. The straw that broke the camel’s back, he supposed.

He still found it kind of weird that Pearl never addressed his outburst, even though it relieved him at the same time that he wouldn’t have to talk about how he had just gone and snapped like that. The pale gem was easily the most maternal out of his three caretakers and usually the one to worry most about him and his well-being (“Make sure you’re getting enough sleep, Steven,”“Steven, be careful!””Are you sure you’re alright, Steven?”), and yet she hadn’t said a word about it ever since they got back and she and Volley unfused. It truly baffled him.

Whatever. It didn’t matter. Steven removed his hands from his face and shut his eyes tight, unable to stop his brow from furrowing and a slight frown from forming, in a frustrated attempt to just sleep and forget about everything, if only for a little bit.

He actually almost came close to achieving this, but right as he was about to doze off he was roused by soft, yet heavy footsteps approaching the right side of his bed and a familiar whiskery snout butting the side of his face.

He cracked open one eye to see Lion quietly staring back at him, chin— _Do lions even have chins?_ — coming to rest on Steven’s chest.

“Ugh, Lion...” Sitting up once more, Steven gently shoved the pink feline off of him. Lion retaliated by climbing over him onto the bed and headbutting him again, more insistently this time, with a soft grunt.

“C’mon, I’m trying to sleep,” he protested, but Lion, being his stubborn old self, flopped down and didn’t budge from the spot that took up a little too much space for Steven’s comfort. The exhausted teen sighed, finally relinquishing his halfhearted attempts at being left alone and resigning to just scratching his fuzzy companion behind the ears. Annoyed as he was, Steven couldn’t help the tiny smile that appeared on his face.

Deep down, he was grateful for Lion’s comforting presence. He always seemed to be able to sense when his owner was upset, and usually managed to appear by his side to come to his rescue, even if it was just for a free belly rub.

(He idly wondered if it was the same with Lars (the sensing thing, not the belly rubs). Steven desperately hoped it was just some sort of animal instinct and not a result of being turned pink—he really didn’t want the older boy to have to feel whenever he was in distress. The last thing he needed was another person worrying about him.)

Steven’s mind wandered back to the incident at the Reef. Calming as Lion’s soft, rumbling purrs were, they didn’t prove much of a distraction from his own thoughts.

Of course he had already known about this new power before that whole fiasco. He’d discovered and used it for the first time during his brawl with Jasper, and a second time when he rescued those amusement park-goers from the runaway rollercoaster as Smoky.

The thing is, those times, he had been in control.

Well, sort of. Obviously both times he didn’t actually mean or even expect to turn pink, but both times he had at least been able to use it to his advantage.

But at the Reef...

It was as if the pink had swallowed up all of his other senses and left him unable to process anything other than the pure, unadulterated rage he felt towards his mother at the time, that he felt towards her every time he learned about another one of her horrible misdeeds.

He didn’t hate her or anything. He could never really find it in himself to hate anyone (besides Kevin). He was just really, _really_ tired of having to deal with her mistakes.

In that moment, he had barely even registered until now how the walls and floor had split and fractured— _just like Volley had mentioned his mom doing_ — among the overwhelming torrent of emotions flowing through his mind, and even after that he was too distracted by the series of events that led to the two pearls fusing and making their daring escape.

His short conversation with their fusion on the beach did serve to lift his spirits a little, and he was glad to know that he was able to help them both, even if it was in a way different than he’d originally intended. However, one particular remark from that morning plagued his mind and wouldn’t stop replaying itself over and over and over again. 

_“You’re just like her,” she had smiled._

And she was right. Even the diamonds had admitted it, not that long ago, when they had sang to him and practically begged him to move in with them. Steven wasn’t Rose Quartz or Pink Diamond, never was, never would be, and everyone else knew that. It was a comforting reassurance that had lasted for a little while. But he found he was becoming more and more like her— in more ways than one— with every passing day, and it was almost as upsetting as actually believing he was his own mom.

His troubled musings were interrupted by an irritated growl from Lion. Steven turned his head towards the source of the sound and blinked, before realizing that his hand had stopped scratching and fallen to his side, much to the pastel beast’s displeasure.

“Oh,” he said, and resumed the motion. “Sorry bud.”

 _Curse these stupid emotional superpowers_ , he thought sardonically, and on that final note reached for the phone resting on his nightstand.

Briefly, he thought about texting Connie, but decided against it once he switched it on and saw the unholy hour it currently was. He didn’t want to wake her up in the middle of the night for something as trivial as this. He could deal with it on his own. Besides, what would he even say? _hey connie im kinda upset about my mom again cause i found out that she hurt another person but what else is new haha and also i guess i have the same destructive powers that she accidentally broke her old pearl with. anyway whats up?_

Yeah. Definitely not.

Steven knew this was probably unhealthy in the long run. He wasn’t an idiot— he was fully aware that he wasn’t the most mentally healthy person in the world (far from it), and bottling everything up and not talking to anyone definitely wasn’t helping much... but for some reason he just couldn’t bring himself to open up without feeling like a burden.

It was fine. He was already used to dealing with stuff like this on his own for the most part; there was no reason for this time to be any different.

Steven decided he’d done enough thinking for one night and opened up the TubeTube app on his phone, hoping to find some distraction from... everything. He clicked on a random video that showed up on his home page and lowered the volume so as to not wake Lion.

He knew he would probably regret staying up, considering the busy day ahead of him, but dismissed the concern out of apathy that seemed to be more and more present these days.

Wasn’t like he was going to be getting much sleep that night anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> this was actually my first time writing a piece of fiction outside of school so i hope it was ok jsbdhdbshs  
> also i made an illustration but i’m posting from mobile and it won’t show the image properly, so here’s links 
> 
> instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/B6bv3SdpGSg/?igshid=pbvwi392mxoe
> 
> tumblr:   
> https://makalawa-dot-exe.tumblr.com/post/189830395881/smol-illustration-for-a-fic-i-wrote-title-just


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